Flowers and Awakenings Essay
“So I guess I did it for all the dumb people like me.” In Flowers for Algernon, the main character Charlie wanted to get smarter so he then had an operation done on him and slowly became smarter! He beat the mouse Algernon in a race and eventually was very intelligent. But later on he lost all of his intelligence. Why do the operation if it’s not going to last. In awakenings it is a lot worse than flowers for Algernon. In this story the ends did not justify the means.
Awakenings was about a group of disabled people that were unresponsive but had reflexes. So the doctor tried a brand new medicine, L-DOPA, to try to cure them. They woke up and became normal! But again they lost it all and were unresponsive again. They tried different things again and again and they woke up but never stayed awake. The ends do not justify the means in this movie either. They made them so happy, made their lives better and yet just to take it away.
It’s almost the same thing with Flowers for Algernon. In the end he may have kept a tiny bit of knowledge but that doesn’t overrule the fact that he had to leave his home because he no longer wanted to be bullied. Yes he did indeed gain some friends near the end but then he moved so it didn’t even matter. There were more negatives then there were positives.
Most people say that the ends do justify the means but it’s different for me. I understand that in Awakenings that every time that they give them some medicines they get closer to a cure but these people aren’t living their full lives. There not getting to see what most people get to see and get to live. In my eyes, I just don’t think it is fair. Just like Leonard, he lost thirty years of his life before he had his first awakening. He was scared to go to sleep because he thought he was going to lose another thirty years.
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In both of these stories the ends do not justify the means. In my opinion I would test things on one person who had no communication to the outside world so he wouldn’t be hurt in any way. But I’m not a doctor so I couldn’t really make that decision. That’s just where my thinking comes from. I put myself in the same position. Just imagine being 15 all young wild and free and then you go to sleep and when you wake up you are 45 and old and have to shave and all that. How would you feel? How would you react?
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